William the Conqueror had a cook called Tezelin, who one day served him with a white soup called Dillegrout. His Majesty was so pleased that he made Tezelin Lord of the Manor of Addington. Good cooks were appreciated thenadays. But we have lost the recipe for Dillegrout.
Attempts have often been made to cook according to ancient recipes, but rarely with success. The curious in these matters may be referred to Smollett’s observations in “Peregrine Pickle” on certain experiments to cook practically according to the recipes of Apicius. They ended disastrously.
A last word on soup. The French cuisine bourgeoise (the best in the world) believes in good strong meat for its soups, and not, as we erroneously suppose, makes shift—and good shift too—out of any odds and ends; “any old thing,” as the Americans say. On the contrary, pour faire sourire le pot-au-feu (delightful expression!) you must have good material, and plenty of it.
CHAPTER·IV·FISH·
“In a restaurant, when a waiter offers you turbot, ask for salmon, and when he offers you a sole, order a mackerel; as language to man, so fish has been given to the waiter to disguise his thoughts.”—P. Z. Didsbury.
The fish of Great Britain is, beyond all manner of doubt, the very best in the world. It is, therefore, only right and proper that its original flavour should be preserved by simply boiling or frying it, and eating it with what some of the old cook-books call its “Analogies,” which presumably means its traditional accompaniments: lemon, brown bread and butter, and so much as may be of its own liquor, or a Court Bouillon of the simplest. There are so many ways of spoiling fish that the Chafer can never go far wrong if he rejects all but the most primitive, although it is not necessary to revert to the aboriginal braising upon the hot ashes of a nearly extinct wood fire, without the intervention of any implement of stone or earthenware whatever. This method is, however, still in practice to-day in many parts of Portugal (and possibly elsewhere) before the doors of the houses of the wage-earners, and in the taverns of the commoner folks.
Without going to extremes, there is a decent self-respecting kind of cookery, to the value and charm of which the great Carême refers in his “Cuisinier Français” (1828), and which he calls, appropriately enough, le genre mâle et élégant.
The genius of Carême, however, occasionally led him to a state of self-appreciation which is supreme in its bathos. He says, for instance, in a kind of retrospect of his contributions to the culinary art: “I contemplated from behind my ovens the kitchens of India, China, Egypt, Greece, Turkey, Italy, Germany and Switzerland, and I felt their ignoble fabric of routine crumbling under my critical blows.” These are, indeed, “prave ’orts!”